Part 3

Aquatic plants; leaves alternate, often basal; sepals 3, petal-like; petals 3, sepals and petals partly united; ovary 3-celled.

Water Hyacinth (Eichhornia crassipes) is also called wampee, river raft, and water orchid. It grows so thick in places that water channels may be blocked, and island-like masses may serve as rafts. With its large spikes of lavender flowers and its broad shining leaves with their curious bulbous floats, it is the queen of our water plants. Many streams, lakes, and canals along the coastal highway offer living pictures which will not soon fade from the memory. The plants float by means of the bulbous enlargement of the leaf stalk. The flowers are somewhat 2-lipped, the 3 sepals and 3 petals somewhat alike but with a yellow spot on the upper petal.

Pickerel Weed (Pontedaria cordata) may be found growing in the mud of inland waters along the coast. It is a taller plant than the water hyacinth, the spikes are narrower, the flowers are a deeper purple, and the leaves are narrower and have no float.

LILY FAMILY (Liliaceae)

Aquatic plants; leaves alternate, often basal; sepals 3, petal-like; petals 3, sepals and petals partly united; ovary 3-celled.

Nuttall’s Death Camass (Toxicoscordion nuttallii) is a common prairie bunch-flower from Texas to Tennessee and Kansas. The leaves, which are mainly basal, long, narrow, and curved, and the stout stems 1-2 feet high arise from a large black-coated bulb which is poisonous. Many cream-colored flowers are borne in a round-topped cluster. The 3 sepals and 3 petals are alike, and the 6 stamens have large yellow anthers. The 3-beaked capsules have numerous seeds. The flowers bloom in April and May. The poisonous bulb is responsible for the name, which is derived from the Greek meaning “poison-onion.”

Wild Hyacinth (Quamasia hyacinthina) is also called indigo-squill or meadow hyacinth. Growing from a deep-rooted edible bulb, a slender stalk 1-2 ft. high bears a spike-like cluster of hyacinth-blue flowers at the top. The flowers are about ½ inch broad and have a most delightful fragrance. It is widespread from Pennsylvania to Texas, common in Texas along railroads in April.

Prairie Onion (Allium nuttallii) has short flower stalks 4-6 inches high growing from a very small bulb which has a brown, finely-woven outer coat. The flowers are nearly half an inch broad and vary from pale pink to a deep rose. Allium is the Latin for “garlic,” and both the cultivated garlic and onion are members of this group. There are nearly twenty different wild onions in the state, many of which make lovely garden plants. Allium mutabile, a taller onion with very numerous white flowers, blooms in May. The prairie onion is the same as Heller’s onion (Allium helleri) and blooms in April.

Crow Poison. False Garlic (Nothoscordum bivalve) is one of the first flowers to appear in the spring on lawns, meadows, and roadsides throughout the Southern States and may bloom again in the autumn. It looks very much like the onions, but has fewer, larger flowers on long stalks and does not have the onion odor. It grows from an onion-like bulb. The name is from the Greek meaning “false garlic.”

Beargrass. Fine-Leaved Tree-Yucca (Yucca elata) belongs to a group widely represented in Texas by many different forms, those with thin thready leaves being known as beargrass, soapweed, “palmillo,” and Adam’s needle and those with thick, stiff, sharp-pointed leaves as Spanish bayonet or dagger. All have creamy or greenish-white bell-shaped drooping flowers borne in dense clusters on a long stalk growing out of a rosette of leaves. The fine-leaved tree-yucca sometimes grows 20 ft. high and is very abundant west of the Pecos River to Arizona. The budding flower stalk is quite tender and palatable and was often used as a food by early settlers. It is an excellent food for cattle, and they keep the stalks stripped of budding shoots, making the absence of seed pods quite conspicuous on the cattle ranges. Indians used the leaf fibers for making sandals.

Soapweed (Yucca glauca), the common yucca of the Panhandle of Texas and adjacent states, has an unbranched flower stalk. As in other yuccas, the roots yield soap when the bark is removed and crushed in water. The fruits of the stiff-leaved tree-yuccas are edible.

AMARYLLIS FAMILY (Amaryllidaceae)

Plants with bulbs or fibrous roots; leaves basal; sepals 3, petal-like; petals 3, sepals and petals united into a tube below; stamens 6; ovary inferior, 3-celled.

Small or Drummond’s Rain Lily (Cooperia drummondii) is known in cultivation as evening star. It does not have a stalked seed pod like the giant rain lily and has smaller flowers with much longer tube and shorter and narrower leaves. It blooms in the late summer and fall.

The cooperias were named in honor of Joseph Cooper, an English gardener. Drummond’s rain lily honors Thomas Drummond, a Scottish plant collector who visited the southeastern part of Texas in 1833-34.

Giant Rain Lily (Cooperia pedunculata) has lovely fragrant white flowers which last only a day or two. The tubular flowers appear funnel-shaped for some hours after opening, but the six broad lobes spread widely as the flowers mature. The leaves are all basal and grow from a large black-coated bulb; they are about a foot long and nearly half an inch wide. Shortly after heavy rains in spring and early summer, lawns, meadows, and woods in Louisiana, Texas, and Mexico are covered with the lovely blossoms. It is also called prairie lily, field lily, crow poison, and fairy lily.

Copper Lily. Texas Atamosco Lily. Stagger Grass (Zephyranthes texana) is a copper-colored lily blooming in August and September in Central Texas. The inner surface of the petals is yellow and shows a purple veining. The flowers stalks are 6-12 inches long, growing from a cluster of very slender leaves. The yellow atamosco (Zephyranthes longifolia) has yellow flowers. It may be found in West Texas to Arizona and Mexico in the late summer and fall.

Yellow Star Grass (Hypoxis erecta) has yellow flowers about an inch broad. It is one of the earliest and commonest spring flowers in the eastern pine woods, blooming in Texas in March and April.

The common century plant of the Big Bend is Agave havardiana. It is not as large as the widely cultivated American century plant introduced from Mexico. A candelabrum-like cluster of yellow flowers, which are provided with a vast quantity of nectar, grows at the top of a stout stalk, which is commonly 12-15 feet high. The stalk grows from a cluster of broad gray leaves, 1-1½ feet long, bordered with recurved prickles and ending in a sharp-pointed spine. Lecheguilla (Agave lecheguilla) is a much smaller plant with narrow spikes of greenish-white flowers.

Texas Spider Lily (Hymenocallis galvestonensis) grows in moist soil, in ditches, or on the edges of ponds. It is particularly abundant on the coastal prairie. A thick, fleshy flower stalk grows from a cluster of strap-shaped leaves about an inch broad and bears 4—6 white flowers in a cluster at the top of the stalk. The scientific name means “beautiful membrane” and refers to the delicate white funnel-tube uniting the bases of the 6 stamens. The 3 linear petals and the three similar sepals are about 6 in. long, united at their lower half into a slender tube. The upper half spreads, giving rise to the common name of spider lily. The flowers bloom from March to May. It was long ago introduced into cultivation and is considered quite hardy in the North.

Western Spider Lily (Hymenocallis occidentalis) has similar flowers, but blooms in the summer after the leaves die back. It is found in moist soil and on shaded hillsides from Northeast Texas to Indiana and Georgia.

IRIS FAMILY (Iridaceae)

Perennial herbs with bulbs, corms, or rhizomes; leaves usually basal and flattened at the sides; 3 sepals and 3 petals nearly equal; stamens 3; ovary below the perianth; fruit a 3-celled capsule.

Pleated-Leaf Iris (Herbertia caerulea) has pleated leaves like the celestials, but the flowers are quite different, the 3 sky-blue sepals being large and spreading and the 3 petals small and inconspicuous. The bases are white with violet markings. It is very abundant on the Coastal Plain of Louisiana and Texas in April and May. The name is in honor of William Herbert, a distinguished English botanist.

Prairie Celestial (Nemastylis acuta) has 6-parted sky-blue flowers with the 3 sepals and 3 petals nearly equal, white at the base. The 2-branched thread-like styles, from which the name is derived, spread horizontally between the 3 erect stamens. It grows on the prairies of North Texas to Kansas and Tennessee.

Woodland Celestial (Nemastylis texana) with its steel-blue flowers is more abundant in the southern part of the state in open post oak woods. Like the pleated-leaf iris, the flowers of the celestials open late in the morning and remain open only a few hours.

Sword-Leaved Blue-Eyed Grass (Sisyrinchium ensigerum) is one of many blue-eyed grasses in the state, most of which have purplish-blue flowers, 6-parted and about half an inch broad, marked at the base with yellow. The flower has 3 erect united stamens. The flowers hang on thread-like stalks from two boat-shaped leaves about an inch long. The stems are winged, sword-shaped or outcurved, and have very fine saw-toothed edges. South-central to Northwestern Texas in April and May. In East Texas the prairie blue-eyed grass (Sisyrinchium campestre) is common. It has pale blue flowers, and the outer floral leaf is prolonged to a slender point, being 1½-2 in. long.

Dwarf Blue-Eyed Grass (Sisyrinchium minus) has small reddish-purple flowers and an oblong seed capsule. Coastal Plain, Louisiana to Texas. Spring.